Innocent

Innocent is the night front desk worker. He is from Northern Rwanda – Ruhengeri – and now resides here in Kigali with six of his family members. All other family was killed in 1994. He spent two hours telling me story over breakfast. People can be jailed for talking about “Hutus” and “Tutsis,” and he agreed after a long talk the night before to help me understand the genocide better, resulting in our morning chat.

At the age of 10, Innocent first realized he was different from his classmates. Of his 60 school agemates, he was the only Tutsi. Before taking a major Rwandan Education test, each student had to stand and state his name and tribe. Innocent, trying to figure out what was going on, repeated what he had heard every other student say – something called “Hutu.” When he said that, his teacher spat on him and yelled at him to go and find out who he was.

Three years later, in 1990, men were sent to assassinate his father. Fate, luck, or God – something happened – his dad died of natural causes days before the men showed up in the village. The men were told that Innocent’s dad was already dead, so they did not come to kill the father (and likely the family).

Most nights between 1990 and 1993, people came banging on the door – requiring that Innocent’s family come out (and be slaughtered). They lay in silence.

In 1993, Innocent and his mom, four sisters, and two brothers, moved to Kigali. Being Tutsis in Northern Rwanda was proving to be much more difficult and dangerous as the Tutsi (aka Rwandan Patriotic Front – RPF) insurgency attacks from Uganda into Rwanda were increasing (resulting in retaliatory attacks against resident Tutsis by angered Hutus).

April 1994 arrived. Innocent and his family were living in a small mud hut, barely surviving but at least healthy and together. Their hut was next to the stadium in a Hutu neighborhood. They had gone to the market days prior and some food in the house. Noises were heard in the evening – the start of the genocide. Innocent and his family closed all of the windows and doors and lay in absolute silence – the first night of a 30 day stay in darkness.

All around them, people were being hacked to death, beaten, raped, and left for dead. The family could peak through the cracks and see people dying and could not help. To open the door meant certain death for the individual and family. Innocent only would go out a night to quickly go to the bathroom, walking over bodies and praying no one would see him. After one week of high anxiety and stress, he started sleeping better – no use in not sleeping. If God willed his death, he would die, tired or not.

By the third week, there was no food left for the seven people surviving in the hut. A Hutu friend came and said that the RPF (Tutsi) had secured the stadium and food was there. Starving and scared, the seven left their safe refuge (soon to be destroyed by Hutu Interhamwe), climbing over dead and dying bodies for 1 km. Innocent said the stench was unbearable. Walking by those bodies taught him that bodies are simply vessels and not to be overly treasured.

Safely making it to the stadium, they stayed there for three months. The Interhamwe continuously bombed the stadium, resulting in burials of 5 – 30 people every day. There was food – but not much. Another friend showed them to a house (in a former Hutu neighborhood – everyone had fled) and brought them food everyday. This friend was an RPF fighter who loved Innocent’s sister, so he helped the family.

By July, the RPF finally had control of the country and Kigali, and things were ‘safe.’ The whole city smelled of rotting flesh. People were in shock and nothing was working. Innoncent said it took four years to clean everything.

He, however, harbors no fear or hatred. He said that he cannot live in Ruhengeri because he does not feel safe, but he does feel safe in Kigali. He sometimes feels a slight bit of anger but that is not the way forward. Killing only leads to more killing, according to him.

Heavy, heavy stuff… Rwanda is not a country to be taken lightly. Everyone you see that is my age (25ish) or older was alive and either has ‘adult’ memories of the genocide or participated. Every three – five people that you pass on the streets have machete scars on their faces and bodies. Everyone has a story like this – either as a victim or victimizer. Yet, people still smile.